The Great Deception

In this work, Mark Curtis uses original research into declassified government files to produce a scathing critique of Anglo-American foreign policy in the 1990s. Focusing on three major areas – the UN, development and the Middle East – he details the extent to which Britain and the US, to different degrees, share considerable responsibility for human rights abuse, poverty and insecurity in the Third World. Curtis frames an understanding of British and US foreign policies in the 1990s by tracing the development of those policies since the end of World War II, demonstrating that the priorities have remained virtually unchanged over the last 50 years, particularly in terms of military and economic policy. The US, with Britain clinging at times unceremoniously to its coat-tails, has systematically manipulated the international foreign policy agenda in its own interests. By blocking UK intitiatives, impoverishing and destabilizing Third World countries under the guise of development and democratization, and protecting corrupt client regimes it has acted to ensure its own continued access to strategically important resources – particularly oil.

Author Biography

Mark Curtis has published widely on British and US foreign policy and on international relations.